Windows 10 Market Share Is Shrinking According To NetMarketShare And StatCounter

Has Windows 10 run out of steam? It’s probably too early to declare that the computing public has given up on the operating system, but there’s definitely less of an urgency on the part of Microsoft customers to upgrade to Windows 10 now that it is no longer a free upgrade.

A slight regression in market share is being reported for Windows 10 by three sources: NetMarketShare, StatCounter and Valve’s Steam Hardware and Software Survey. In NetMarketShare’s case, Windows 10 was sitting firm with 22.99 percent of the global operating system market in August. However, that share rolled back to 22.53 percent in September, which is troubling for an operating system that Microsoft had originally hoped would cross the 1 billion installs threshold some time in 2018 (that figure currently stands at 400 million).

During that same period, Windows 7 actually saw an uptick in adoption, going from 47.25 percent to 49.27 percent. Perhaps NetMarketShare is picking up on customers that have downgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 7?

Interestingly enough, StatCounter is also reporting Windows 10 backpedaling, with its September share dipping ever so slightly to 24.42 percent compared to 24.43 percent for August.

These small declines were then further backed up from another source: the Steam Hardware and Software Survey. In August, the survey showed that Valve’s Windows 10 user base stood at 48.95 percent. However, September saw that figure fall to 48.90 percent. This was the first time that Window 10 had seen a decline in share (even if it was a tiny one) since it launched over a year ago.

While we may never know the real reasons behind these nearly imperceptible declines in market share for September, it’s interesting to note that we’re seeing those declines from three different reporting agencies – so there’s definitely something amiss here. Is this just a one-time dip or indicative of some potential rough waters in the months ahead for Microsoft? We’ll revisit this topic again next month to see how Windows 10 is faring in the marketplace.